Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a technique for remote monitoring control of setting information of a network device.
Description of the Related Art
To achieve the stable operation of a plurality of devices (e.g., image forming apparatuses) connected to a network of an office, an information technology (IT) administrator remotely monitors the devices regarding whether setting information of each device is changed or altered to an unintended setting value.
Conventionally, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-318207 is discussed as a technique in which a management server monitors setting information. In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-318207, setting information stored in a database of a management server and setting information acquired from a plurality of devices as monitoring targets are compared with each other. In a case where these pieces of setting information are different from each other, the settings of the devices are updated using the setting information stored in the management server, thereby achieving the stable operation of the devices.
However, there are cases where there is a setting item that does not need to be monitored depending on the device, and where even for the same setting item, a value that can be set differs depending on the device. In such cases, it is not possible to perform appropriate monitoring with the above conventional technique. To achieve such monitoring using the technique of Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2006-318207, it is necessary to create a plurality of databases on the management server according to the characteristics of the devices as monitoring targets. Further, every time monitoring is set, it is necessary to specify a database for use according to the characteristics of the devices as monitoring targets. Particularly, in a large-scale device management system, the trouble and the cost of such monitoring become enormous.
As described above, in a conventional remote monitoring technique for configuration information of a device, it is difficult to achieve appropriate monitoring taking into account the operability of a monitoring procedure and device characteristics, and there is a problem with the management cost of a computer system to an IT administrator.